LIKE Frank Spencer on roller skates, there is something compelling about Brandon Lewis's performances on the so-called sea border.
It is perhaps simply good fortune that, at a time like this, our secretary of state is also a supply chain and logistics expert.
Mr Lewis is engaged in determined efforts to convince us that his government's Brexit deal with the EU has absolutely no connection with the shortages seen on some supermarket shelves or the difficulties reported by haulage companies.
He is adamant that the extra paperwork, customs declarations and physical checks that are a consequence of Northern Ireland remaining in the single market for goods has added neither friction nor fetter.
If he keeps this up, Mr Lewis is in danger of becoming the political equivalent of Frank Drebin, the hapless cop portrayed with deadpan brilliance by Leslie Nielsen in Police Squad! and The Naked Gun movies, waving his arms and insisting to a crowd of bystanders that "There's nothing to see here" while a fireworks factory explodes behind him.
Mr Lewis does not help his argument, weak as it is, by suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic is to blame for the disruptions that have arisen since the transition period ended on January 1.
These have ranged from Marks & Spencer's problems with getting Percy Pig past the veterinary checks to a British bed company raising its Northern Ireland delivery charges to £100 million.
In fact, our supply chains with Britain have proved remarkably resilient during the Covid-19 crisis.
Cast your mind back to last March. Some people, fearing apocalypse and swept along by a febrile wave of panic, emptied the shops of hand wash, toilet roll, frozen goods and anything else with a long shelf life that they could get their over-sanitised mitts on.
Yet, thanks to fully-integrated supply networks, any of those coronavirus gaps on the supermarket shelves were remarkably short-lived.
Mr Lewis has been at pains throughout to emphasise that Northern Ireland remains an integral part of the UK.
And yet, whatever way you look at it, the north is a less integral part of the UK today than it was last month.
While this might be a conundrum for political unionism in general, it is a particularly acute problem for the DUP. Its epically poor judgment over Brexit has been so monumental that Unesco should put a plaque on it and declare it a world heritage site
It's hiding in plain sight - on the website of every online retailer who has decided it can't be bothered with the hassle of sending its goods here any longer and in the radio adverts for supermarkets which now end with a hurried "does not apply to" or "unavailable in Northern Ireland".
You don't need to understand the complexities around rules of origin, groupage and tariffs to understand that something about the link to Britain has changed.
There is no doubt that the bonds that hold the Union together have been weakened by how the Brexit fantasy has been resolved.
While this might be a conundrum for political unionism in general, it is a particularly acute problem for the DUP.
Its epically poor judgment over Brexit has been so monumental that Unesco should put a plaque on it and declare it a world heritage site.
Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, the ERG and the rest of the Vote Leave cadre must have pinched themselves when the 2017 Westminster election delivered them 10 such useful idiots to help in the putsch against Theresa May and her 'softer' Brexit. Johnson, of course, ditched the DUP at the first opportunity...
Edwin Poots, meanwhile, is intent on talking up the negative aspects of Brexit, in a manner suggestive of a man whose party had nothing to do with it.
Channelling his inner Nostradamus-meets-Eeyore, Mr Poots has issued dire warnings of starving school children and hospital patients and jelly and Bisto shortages as a direct result of the Brexit sea border.
If parts of the DUP can't even face up to a border that's only a few weeks old, how are they going to have a conversation about the future of one that's been with us for a century?
